Don't You Forget About Me
by deliriousnight
Summary: Because they messed up badly this time. But, hopefully, they'll be able to bring her back. Sakura-centric.
1. prologue

**based off of**: The lovely Audrey's dream!

(Not gonna tell you where from because then this will be spoiled okay.)

* * *

It had all come down to this.

They were both breathing hard, trying to be the last one standing, and ignoring the bloody battlefield around them.

Naruto's chakra was running low. He had already summoned Kurama and the beast was telling _him_ that it would be a good idea to slow down because Naruto would slowly die if he continued at this rate and that wouldn't be good for _anyone_.

Sasuke held Kusanagi in his shaky grip, eyes wide and red with his Sharingan activated, and stared at Naruto.

Both were unwilling to give up.

_So how will this end?_

As if to answer the question hanging above their heads, just as they ran to each other, for another strike, the one person missing from their this _team reunion_-only could a faceoff really _count_ as a _team reunion_?-showed up.

She walked slowly, a limp in her leg, hands and body aching from the amount of chakra she had used to heal _all those people-_

_(Bloody bodies came to mind, children crying out for their mothers who would never ever come back because they were all deaddeaddead)_

when she saw them. It went in slow motion in front of her eyes, her teammates-_her boys_-running forward, drawing chakra at an alarming rate.

It was a split-second decision. She surged forward without a thought, because _after all, they were her boys and she would never think twice about protection them_, and jumped into the fray.

When the two boys had finally come to their senses, when the power had evaporated, they were standing a foot away from each other.

And Sakura was lying on the floor, not quite moving and not quite breathing.

* * *

**notes: **I think I'm evil oops.


	2. one

**notes:** Hi!

* * *

Naruto's hands are bloody and he can't see through the water in his eyes.

It drips down onto his lips and he tastes the saltiness, tastes the bitterness of tears, and he doesn't _care_ anymore about being hygienic or _whatever_, so he puts his head in those bloody hands and despairs.

They're in the hospital.

Kakashi and Sasuke make the plural.

_It's ridiculous_, Naruto thinks, as he drowns himself in the blood that his hands are soaked in. It isn't his blood. It's _never _his blood. _It's ridiculous to think that the one person who you were trying to bring _him _back for brought him back herself. By putting herself in this kind of situation_.

The room is cold and Naruto is shaking.

Suddenly there is a warm palm on his shoulder, directing his vision up, and when he looks he sees Hinata, worriedly staring down at him.

"N-Naruto-kun?" she says so tentatively, as if she's afraid he's going to break. But that's okay, because Naruto is already broken _and it's all his own fault anyway._ "Are you okay?"

He laughs. It's a horrible sound, echoing on the hospital walls and making those in the near vicinity cringe.

_No, I'm not okay, I'll never be okay, how can I be okay when Sakura is _in _there and it's all my fault it's all my fault it'sallmy_fault, the laugh seems to say.

Hinata doesn't cringe. She just stares down at him with wide eyes, and her palm moves away from his shoulder. He thinks she's going to back away, but instead she moves her palm, covering his eyes. He hadn't realized, but when her hand drops a little bit, he sees the blood and the tears mixed together on her pale skin.

As if in a daze, he takes her hands and tries to brush it away because _Hinata-chan is good, my blood and my tears shouldn't be on her hands, please no, _please,_ I can't handle this_.

"Naruto-kun," she calls, and he is back in the waiting room of that hospital room and she is staring down at him. Her eyes are no longer wide and her tone is no longer hesitant, and she wraps her sleek arms around him and holds him close, whispering _something-_he's not entirely sure _what_-in his ear.

He still isn't okay. But it certainly helps enough that he turns his face towards her, buries his head in her shoulder and bawls and bawls and bawls.

...

...

Kakashi is staring at him. He's only staring with one eye, the Sharingan still covered, of course, because this is a hospital and there's no need to turn another place into a battleground.

"You've come back," Kakashi states quietly, leaning back against the wall and he stares at him some more, as if trying to analyze all of Sasuke, trying to figure out what runs through his blood and his head and his _heart_ but, at the moment, all Sasuke really cares about is the girl in the hospital room who, the last time he saw her, was lying stone-cold on the ground. "You've finally come back."

"I have," he murmurs distractedly. It was amazing that he _could _come back without much of a fuss. As soon as Naruto and he had realized what had happened, and seen Sakura on the floor, they had-or, well,_ Naruto _had, because Sasuke was stiff and still-scooped her up and raced to Konoha. The guards at the gate were hostile at first, seeing Sasuke and getting ready to capture the _damned Uchiha traitor_ but then they saw Sakura in Naruto's arms. They had both paled considerably. It was in that moment when Naruto took his chance and hurried past them, Sasuke right behind him.

"Is this a permanent thing, Sasuke?" Kakashi wants to know. "Or are you going to wait until Sakura is okay and then leave us high-and-dry?"

Sasuke just stares at him.

"You'll figure it out, huh," Kakashi interprets. "Well, I hope you do that soon, Sasuke. Because that girl in there _stopped your fight_, risking herself, and I don't think she'll be able to handle more heartbreak_ if_ she wakes up.

The word _if _echoes through his mind and he is suddenly very alert to the hospital room where Sakura is, listening for any sounds of breathing or crying or, _god fuckiing forbid_, that sound the machine makes when your lifeline goes straight and there's really no where more it can go.

...

...

It's been _weeks_.

That's what Tsunade thinks, as she sits in the hospital room, next to her prized pupil's bed, just staring at the pink hair that's fanned out against the pillow and the pale white eyelids of the girl who _hasn't opened her eyes yet._

_She's only in a coma, Tsunade, calm down! _her inner voice snaps at her. It's been doing that because every fiber in her being has asked her to be rational about this but there's something about being rational that she just can't _do_ when it comes to Sakura.

Naruto and Hinata and Kakashi and Sasuke come everyday.

She had just sent them home, in fact, because she's had enough of seeing Naruto, the zombie. The only thing that seems to be stopping him from completely breaking down is Hinata, who stands next to him like an anchor and helps him breathe easier.

Kakashi hasn't touched his orange book in these weeks. It seems like he can't enjoy such a thing, when his student still hasn't woken up, still hasn't opened her greengreen eyes and then smiled widely, like she always did.

They haven't decided what to do with Sasuke yet, but Tsunade knows that they'll put off that decision until Sakura is woken up

(or maybe until it's official that she  
won't).

It is as Tsunade is thinking this, and picking up a cup of sake, about to drown it in one gulp-she's been drinking so much sake now, because it helps her think a little less-that she hears the sound of soft exhales.

"Sakura?" Tsunade says, jumping up from her seat and leaning over her pupil. She presses her ears to Sakura's chest, listening for a heartbeat, and she _hears one_, a beautifulbeautiful heartbeat and she doesn't think she's ever heard anything more lovely in the _world_. "Sakura, _are you awake_?"

Her question is answered when those pale white eyelids flutter and viridian pupils peep out.

As hesitantly as a new-born.

* * *

**notes2:** Thoughts?


	3. two

**notes: **Gomen, this is a little shorter than the last. I think the length will be varying, honestly, for every chapter though :)

* * *

There is a certain confusion to waking up out of a deep slumber and she feels it.

Oh, she _feels _it.

It sweeps through her bones and the back of her eyelids, as she wakes up, and twists around in confusion.

_Where am I_, she wonders, _where am I._

These questions are _not _answered immediately but there is a blonde, big-breasted woman seated near her, with wide terrified eyes and perhaps she knows the answer to this question?

"Where am I?" she croaks out loud to this strange woman, the likes of who she's never seen before, but she doesn't remember seeing _anything_ from before, strangely enough.

The woman's eyebrows furrow down and, suddenly, she is very close and holding some kind of instrument up to her eyes and opening them wide, inspecting them and she feels somewhat invaded because _where is she who is this woman what is happening_.

But then the woman puts the instrument away, sighs like something major has been taken off her shoulders and smiles a bit. It is a desperate smile, she realizes, the smile someone gives when they don't know what to believe anymore but they hope against hope that everything is okay because that's how it appears.

She doesn't know how she knows this but she _knows_, nonetheless.

"You're in the hospital, Sakura," the woman says. "Safe and sound, safe and sound, safe and sound." And she continues to smile, pulling her close to her chest and she can hear the sound of labored breathing, like she's trying to hold back the tears.

But the only thing she can think about is that one word.

"Who is Sakura?"

* * *

Sasuke is not the first one there.

It's not because he didn't run fast enough or didn't care enough but because Naruto was the first one to hear and he had told Kakashi who, in turn, told Sasuke.

He sweeps through the hallway without a word, nurses scattering to make room for him to get through. He doesn't acknowledge them, so focused is he on the task at hand.

And that is to be in that hospital room with his former female teammate, who he had thought he had killed.

He slams open the door, in his hurry, and is greeted with silence.

Naruto, who he had expected to be jumping for joy and yelling all over the place, has the same look on his face that he had had for the past few weeks—absolute dread.

Kakashi's face is covered with his palms, his book still nowhere in sight.

Tsunade only glances up when he comes through, smiling a little broken-heartedly.

And Sakura sits on the hospital bed, staring at everyone blankly, like she has no idea what was going on. "Oh great," she exhales softly. "Another person. Would _you _mind telling me who you all are? And who on earth _Sakura _is?" And she grins tentatively, wincing as she placed her head back against the pillow below her.

As if she doesn't realize what those questions did to everyone standing in the room.

As if she doesn't realize what those questions did to _him_.

And just as he was about to open his mouth to say something to this—_this bad tasting joke, this unamusing joke, because that's what this had to be, a joke, nothing else—_, to tell her _exactly_ who Sakura is, who _she_ is, with bright green eyes and even brighter smile, with the ability to love so deeply and fill his existence so intensely, even if he hadn't seen her in so long, even when he had been away from the village, even when he had knocked her out and laid her on the bench, even when he had turned his back on everything, the door behind him bursts open, hitting him right in the back and causing him to lurch forward abruptly.

"Where's our daughter?" two voices demands simultaneously.

Haruno Kizashi and Haruno Mebuki had arrived.


	4. three

Sakura's parents are _furious_.

They are furious at him, at Naruto, at _Kakashi. _Sasuke didn't think he'd ever seen adults cry and scream blood like they do and it shakes him up a little inside, because he has never met Sakura's parents before. He didn't even remember that they _existed. _

But of course they did, he thinks to himself. Sakura didn't come out of nowhere and there was always a part of him that wondered who had given birth to her. Who had given her her light hair and emerald eyes? Who had she inherited such a strong will from, that she was able to jump in front of him and Naruto—at the risk of _putting herself in a coma_.

He shivers at the feeling that creeps up his back and chills his neck, but keeps it to himself.

There are more things to worry about right now.

"Do you think this is _okay_?" Mebuki—that's her name, he had learnt from Kakashi a few days ago, and subconsciously filed it in his memory for a day like this—yells at Naruto. She had barged into the room like she was going to raise hell and she _looked _like it too—hair flying, dark circles underlying her eyes, and lines around the corners of her mouth that made him think that she hadn't been smiling so much lately. Or sleeping.

Lack of sleep didn't detract from her ability to jump right into the room and start a ruckus. She had picked on Naruto first, maybe because he was the first one she saw, or maybe because he was holding his hands up like he wanted to calm her down.

Either way, she took it as a free-for-all sign to rampage. "My daughter doesn't _remember who we are anymore; _do you _honestly _think we're going to allow her to continue being a ninja?"

"I'm not denying that this was our fault!" Naruto protests softly. All of them are standing in the hallway outside of Sakura's room, ordered out by Tsunade who didn't think her confused, amnesiac apprentice needed much more confusion in the air than what she had already witnessed. Before he shut the door behind him, he had seen Sakura's face, curious and confused. Waiting to be clued in everything around her.

The looks on her parents' faces as he stands in that hallway with them, however, don't suggest that that will be happening anytime soon.

The shivers continue up his neck.

"She's still alive!" Naruto continues. He has willingly made himself a target of their rage, and the three seem to have forgotten about him and Kakashi, concentrating on the topic at hand: Sakura's future. "We can retrain her and tell her about everything. Just because she's forgotten, it doesn't mean that _we don't remember_!"

Mebuki opens her mouth to argue with this but she is interrupted by a husky voice from next to her. They all turn their attention to Haruno Kizashi, who has not spoken _nearly _as much as his wife. The anger in his wife doesn't seem to belong to him; if anything there is a quiet sort of despair in his body language, a misery that may have aged the man and given him a weary voice and aching eyes. "There are things worse than death, young man," he tells Naruto firmly. "You should know that by now, as a shinobi. _The world is as unsafe as death itself_. And ninjas are to be prepared for that. But we aren't _only_ ninjas; we are parents who have a daughter who can't remember us, who can't remember _anything_ and I believe that that gives us the right to decide what we want for our daughter."

No one seems to breathe for a moment, overwhelmed by the power in his words. Sasuke has not known the man for long, but he is obligated to say something and break the silence. So he steps up, bringing everyone's eyes to him and he murmurs, in a tone that echoes through the hallway, bouncing off the walls and coming back to each of them in turn, "I'm sorry."

"Excuse me?" Mebuki barks outraged. She straightens a finger at Naruto and glares at Sasuke. "Is _sorry all you can say_? Our daughter, our _little girl_ is in there with no memory and no cure in sight and all you can say is _sorry_?"

"Yes," he replies. He registers the surprise on all of their faces, feeling detached from his body—what he had been feeling since he saw Sakura and the innocent smile on her face and the blankness in her eyes when she gazed at him. "Sorry won't make it better, but it's what I want to say. So I'll say it."

Kakashi and Naruto's eyes meet each other, astonished, but Kizashi watches him carefully. "I see," her father says. "But it won't change the fact that we aren't allowing Sakura to be a kunoichi anymore." He directs his gaze and his voice at Kakashi this time—the sensei, the leader, the one responsible for them, or _used _to be responsible for them in happier times. "Tsunade-sama understands and gives us permission to do whatever we wish." He straightens his back and switches from Kakashi's pained face, to Naruto's petrified one, and finally to Sasuke's he goes, which he halts on rather dramatically.

"From this day on, Haruno Sakura is no longer a kunoichi of Konoha, or any other ninja village."

* * *

**notes: **Thoughts?


	5. four

**notes:** Hello again and thanks for all the reviews so far! :D I actually have some important announcements:

**a)** This fic is becoming a very big guilty pleasure and thus I've decided for longer chapters every update now.

**b)** This means that it may take more time than usual to update

**c)** AP exams are in two weeks and end two weeks after, so I may not have the time to write, especially since my computer has time controls on it -sigh-

**d)** I'll try and have the next chapter out after exams, but since it will be longer, I can't ensure that.

**e) **You may see me updating other fics that I have up which will be on account of the fact that they are shorter in length OR they're things that I can write on paper, rather than this, which I always type straight out.

**f)** Uh, that's it, so you can proceed to the story :)

* * *

The kunai flies past him, as he simultaneously dodges another incoming blow from Naruto.

A month has gone by since Sakura's parents had made their decision; a month filled with ire and tension because no one was very sure about what was going to happen.

In the end, the council had pardoned Sasuke, under the condition that he would be under house arrest for some time and be unable to go on missions. The foreboding trial completed with the thought that Sasuke was only what the system of Konoha had made him, traveling back to the days when he was just a little boy who had so much sadness and anger planted into him, just waiting to burst.

But he is home now, back with the _people_ (not the system) who cared so much about him. And, in a sense, he is happy, but the happiness only floods away when the reminder of _why _he even came back sinks in.

"Teme, pay attention!" Naruto taunts and a pressure hits his jaw, propelling him backwards and on the rough green grass of the training grounds. He lays there for the briefest of moments, catching his breath, before he gets to his feet once more.

A smirk curls on his lips and he bounds forward, fist high and ready. "Oh, you're fucking _asking _for it, dobe."

Ironic to realize that this situation is very like the one from months ago, only with a less devastating aftermath.

* * *

Team Taka is an integral part of Konoha now.

He has a hunch that Suigetsu would have rather run off on his own, to swim with the sharks, but Juugo could not bear to part with Sasuke, and Karin either.

So they all make a happy place in Konoha—the original happy place for Sasuke.

But Sasuke is not able to forget so easily.

On dark nights that he can't waste patrolling or walking or out on missions, he wakes up with a pounding in his ear and sweat dripping down and off his skin. There are occasions where he can place his head back on the pillow and banish the memories, but when this is not the case, Sasuke is left to listen to the beat of his heart and trying to relinquish his grip on reality.

It never works.

* * *

He meets her sometimes—or, rather, he spots her when heading for groceries, grumbling about how much food the dobe—his roommate now—can possibly consume.

She forever has a smile on her face, all tipped with the lightest tint and coiled at the edges.

Never failing to stop him in his tracks.

Sakura notices him too, nodding every so often when she finds him staring. She's usually standing in front of a bookstore—someone told him it belongs to her father—with a towel in her hand to wipe the windows.

He doesn't nod back, because the tiniest bob of her head makes his stomach tighten and a constant thump sounds in his head. Fists clenching and fingers digging all the way into his palms, he manages to walk away.

Hoping that no one notices the slightest stumble of his feet.

* * *

After a few more months, Sasuke is promoted to ANBU-status. Everyone finds it a long-time coming and Sasuke thinks it odd that the Chunin, Jonin, and ANBU examinations were held in succession; one per each month and in a row. It was ridiculous to believe that he wouldn't be able to pass the first and the second, but it was a need to take both and come out on top.

And so he did.

Naruto joins him on the top with a broken grin—because neither of them will ever be okay, really—and still holding on to his infamous dream of becoming something more. "I'm going to be the next Hokage!" he yells when they are _literally _on top, standing above the carved monuments of the Hokages.

Sasuke's hand twitches. Whatever else may have changed, Naruto has not; still a fucking idiot.

Still his blood brother. With that in mind, Sasuke raps his knuckles against Naruto's head and replies, "Work on being less of an dobe first."

When the blonde starts screaming profanities, Sasuke rolls his eyes, aims a kick at his legs, and disappears in a poof of smoke.

* * *

"Are you happy, Sasuke?" Karin wonders out loud.

Suigetsu, Juugo, Naruto, and them all sit on the stools in Ichiraku. Naruto and Suigetsu are wrestling noodles away from each other. Juugo is in the corner, watching them with patient eyes. He's kind of like a mother in that way, intervening when Suigetsu climbs on the marble tabletop and Naruto hangs off of it, Teuchi scolding them in the background.

Sasuke observes all of this and sips at his tea. The taste is bitter, yet satisfying.

"Happier than I've been in years," he finally answers, murmuring the words against the rim of his glass. It's definitely the truth; where, previously, all he could remember was being overcome by anger—a frightening anger that took a hold of his mind and never seemed to loosen its grip on him—, there was a calming aspect of his life now, soothing him.

Karin smiles, somewhat bitterly, comparable to the flavor of his drink, but like she knew the answer before she even asked. "I am too, surprisingly," she sighs.

They sit in a silence for an instant; shared companionship between the them.

At least until Suigetsu accidentally-on-purpose shoves his ass into Karin's chest and colors her face as red as her hair, starting yet _another _cat fight that Teuchi can't calm down.

The dark-eyed boy merely quirks an eyebrow and stares as Ichiraku falls to total destruction, an idea—completely irrelevant to the commotion surrounding him—forming in his mind.

* * *

He meets Kakashi by the bench. His sensei's collapsed on it, hands flung off the wooden back and eyes closed lightly.

The smallest movement of his fingers alerts Sasuke to the fact that he is awake and aware of Sasuke's presence. But he still doesn't open his eyes.

Sasuke doesn't sit beside him—not only because he just came from Ichiraku (now wrecked, thanks to stupid people he unfortunately admitted to associating with) but also because there's electricity pulsating across his skin and he feels akin to a live-wire.

"You haven't been around for awhile," he comments.

An eye opens, peering out. The sun had set some time ago but Sasuke still senses the piercing stare, disguised by that pretend drowsiness Kakashi has always been known for.

"I haven't," he agrees, easily enough, hands moving from behind the bench, tucking into his pockets. "Did you miss me an awful much, Sasuke?"

He doesn't even register the teasing tone, his nerves jumping enough without that. "I have a plan."

Maybe it's the way he says it, a solemn atmosphere layered beneath and a blunt twist to his voice, but Kakashi straightens up and narrows his eyes. "What sort of plan would that be?"

Sasuke attempts to unclench his fists, before he draws blood from the amount of force he's exerting, digging his nails into his flesh.

"The plan to get Sakura back, of course."

* * *

**notes2: **Thoughts? Reviews and feedback is more appreciated than follows and favorites! :)


End file.
